Retrospective

Why did the grapes of my life
ripen so late?
When the sun is setting.
When the heat has passed
and the gray fog of winter
peeks from the shadows.
It reminds me of season’s end
when the flowers brave a day or two
then bend in weariness from the cold.
Their petals looking like paper
peppered with time.

Life gets harder as you age,
but in an irony more beautiful.
More quick to love and hope,
with the irony of its certain passing.
That is the vision life leaves.
That everything is contradiction in the end.
That life’s lessons do not prepare you
for wisdom, for resolving its puzzles.
Only the sunrises and sunsets
that sparkle in the eyes,
and cause you to weep without sorrow,
and feel joy without reason.